Baby discus sick

[Hudson Ensz]

hey i have a baybe discus that is sick there are little bits of fungus on the nose and he has a brown patch on him close to his head is this an early stage of hole in the head ? i will try to get some pics. what should i do with the fungus? the ph is 5 and the water is around 85 degrees

[Lisachromis]

Is this in a separate tank from your pike?
Pics will help us figure out what's going on. First thing you could do is a really good water change.

[Hudson Ensz]

YES he is in a differant aquarium than my pike he is in a 20 inch long planted tank. i had him with a much larger discuss but the other one showed agresion so i moved him. unfortunately i may not be able to get a photo just yet as the fungus is hardly noticeable and wont stand out much but i will try. i will make a water change though and see if that helps at all. well got to go bye

[Hudson Ensz]

Hey i got an ok pic but the fungus is way smaller. the brown spot is very hard to find in the picture in reall lif it is a lot clearer i changed the water so that may have helped things a litle bit. well here is the picture. i moved him to a much smaller aquarium to get it.

[apistomaster]

Hi Amazon Kid,
The discus looks to be still in pretty good shape. I think if you keep it at ~88F/30.5C and feed it live foods it should make a full recovery. I think all that is wrong is that it scraped itself when trying to evade a dominant discus giving chase. Reintroducing this specimen may only assure it becomes a stunted specimen. Letting it live alone with small peaceful fish like Tetras might be best. When/If you try to reintroduce it to the larger discus community you may need to do a major disruption of the existing aquascape along with a water change so that all the discus can begin their social hiearchy anew. This is an old Cichlid keeping trick and it carries no guarantee that it will work but it often does.

[Hudson Ensz]

Thanks Apistomaster and lisa the fungus has gone but my discus will some times rub on drift wood etc. i have had enough experiences with ich to now that he does not have it and there seems to be no outward sign of disease once or twice i wouldnt be worried but he does it too often. What kind of food is best other thaan live worms and the staple? thanks alot bye

[apistomaster]

You might consider adding a good beef heart mix to what foods you already use. Beef heart's drawback is that it can be a messy food but careful feeding, preparation and maintenance is enough to control this. Beef heart blends are extremely good discus foods for building up thick bodied fish and promoting good growth rates despite the fact discus do not normally eat cattle organs in the wild..
I recommend making your own mix. Many commercial brands are not well cleaned of bits of connective tissue and blood vessels and this is a very important as these are indigestable and can cause choking and contribute to pollution. Also when you make your own you can add other ingredients that improve its nutritional value. My mix is approximately 5 parts pureed heart using ~1/2 tsp of Agar in 1 cup of almost boiling water. Agar is the binding agent and is available from health food shops; so is the powdered Spirulina.Use only enough of of the hot water/Agar mix to assure thorough puree of the beef heart. Too much Agar will result in too solid of a mix for discus to to tear apart. This is why it is important to try some small trial batches. Minimize the water content as much as possible. I add 1/2 to 1 tsp of tropical fish Vitamins like VitaChem, 1 tsp Powdered Spirulina and about 1 tbs of Cyclop-Eeze, also.
To this blend I fold in by hand, about 2 parts Freeze Dried Blood worms and two parts Earthworm Flakes(Other high quality flakes are fine). These dry foods absorb excess fluids and the blood worms are helpful in promoting cohesion of the mix as it thaws. Do try several small size batches until you are happy with the results before making up large batches. PM me if you have any questions. This recipe is much more nutritious than a beef heart and gelatin only mix. I usually freeze 1/4 in thick flats in plastic freezer bags or preferably in vacuum auto sealed bags. This recipe hold together well as it thaws while remaining easy for the fish to tear apart. Once you have perfected what works for you then you can make up enough to last six or more months at a time. The added ingredients may be varied. This recipe is one that works well for me but every batch I make is slightly different from the last.
Small fractions of the mix can be medicated with praziquantel and or flubendazole. These can be handy to have when treating new or sick discus infected with parasitic worms.

Discus, including healthy one's, will get an itch that needs scratching. So not all scratching indicates a problem.
I have a few questions for you. Where are your discus from? They appear to be tank raised to me and from a strain of Blue or the "Alenquer" type of browns. Do you have local discus breeders? Since most wild Discus, other than greens, imported into the USA come from exporters in Manaus I find it interesting you are keeping tank raised fish. TR are easier to work with but it would be nice to know if more wild type discus were beginning to be aquacultured. This would reduce the seasonal availability of Brazilian wild discus and maybe more of the Royal Blues and well marked local varieties would become easier to get eventually. It would be great to see this happen without the introduction of existing domestic strains from other parts of the world entering that gene pool. 100% Native Brazilian Discus, tank raised, would be special fish.

[Hudson Ensz]

I will ask the dealer if they were captive bred or not but i think they are. the discus are NOT imported so they are 100 percent brazilian wild caught or not. Regional fish are VERY cheap down here fortunately for me unfortunately though imported fish are very expensive. I can get a couple of varieties that are all basically the same like really dark brown, medium brown, and golden. I am sorry though, I am almost fluent in portuguese but not fluent enough to ask my dealer if more wild caught varieties were being aquacultured, i wish i could though. i should ask more questions about the fish before i bye them! the picture is my adult discus from the same petstore

[apistomaster]

Hi Amazon,
That is a wild Green Discus you have in the photo above. It looks like all your discus are wild caught. It was definitely caught way up river from Manaus. Maybe from some where near Leticia. Greens are only found in the the Western upper tributaries of the Amazon. It is a very nice red spotted green. Green discus always have red spotted anal fins or broken dashes rather than continuous striations like the fish below.. Not all greens are blessed with so many spots on their bodies as yours. The more red spots on a Green the higher price they command in the export market. That fish could sell for an easy $100 here or more. I'll take eight of those. Do you accept Visa? I prefer wild discus. I have ten Heckels and am looking for more Blues.
Your first discus photo looks like something caught closer to town. It's a Blue/Brown. How much Blue it has once full grown will determine which. It is a descriptive rather than a scientific difference. Here is a fish of mine that I consider an average Blue but they can be completely covered with blue striations.

Those that are fully striated are often sold as Royal Blues. Just a few per thousand are completely striated and they are expensive, if you can find them here.
Just feed them as much live food as you can get. That really helps them recover fast from all the stresses they have been through since being caught. Do try to make a couple of large water changes each week. I try to change 75% of my water 2 times a week with my discus.
Here is a photo of an Green Discus of average color. I paid $50 for them. I sold them since I took the photo.

Here is one of my Heckels Discus. These mostly come from tributaries of the Rio Negro.

[Hudson Ensz]

no way thats impossible if i told you how cheap the discus was you would think i was lying! i don't have a clue how i would get it to you though i would give them all to you for $700

[apistomaster]

Yeah, I know how cheap they are for you. We are paying for high air freight and three or four middlemen mark ups. Probably about 30 times what you can buy them for. They can only pack 4 to 8 discus to a box with a lot of water and that water adds a lot of weight. The weight determines the cost per box and freight cost is much more than the cost of the Discus.
The mark ups are like those of illegal drugs or legal drugs, for that matter. They are all crooks.

[Hudson Ensz]

Wouldn't i need a license to ship discus out of the country? i doubt they would not let me just ship fish out of the country, IBAMA would not like it

[apistomaster]

I wouldn't pretend to know what the Brazilian ornamental tropical fish laws and regulations are but I can make an educated guess.
First of all I don't think the export permits are given out to very many people. I suspect some gratuities are necessary part of doing business.
Those who already have them have often had their business handed down to them through the family.
I believe an export broker must also be used.
Then there are the capital costs of financing the facilities, transportation and and operations. It isn't something easily done alone . You have to develop supply contacts and hire help to run the operation.
At the import end in the receiving country the person or company also needs a customs broker, permits and the facilities plus associated costs.

One to one transactions between individuals are quite complicated and expensive. It is beyond the means of most people. It certainly is beyond my means.
I think it is possible, for those who can afford it, to make arrangements with one of your established exporters to select what they want and have the fish sent to them. They still need a lot of permits from both countries. People do do it as part of some specialty ecotourism trips where the tour company has already established the connections and may help their clients obtain the export permits. The adventure and experience are the primary reason rather than hoping to get some fish cheaper than usual. It is something I think many of us fish keepers would love to do. I think just to fly round trip to Manaus from where I live would cost me somewhere around $4000 US.
I could buy a lot of discus already imported to this country for $4000. I would need a few more large tanks to house 50 large wild Discus. I'm sure if I bought them all at one time I wouldn't have to pay nearly as much each as I would for just four or six large Discus.
In the tropical fish business, it is the bread and butter fish like Cardinal Tetras and Corydoras that are the money makers.
It is a wonderful fantasy to think about.
When you breakdown the cost per fish it is cheaper to buy them from companies already doing business in the US.

[Hudson Ensz]

Sorry but that does it Apistomaster its not gonna happen i dont have the resources

[apistomaster]

I was only thinking wishfully. I knew it wasn't practical. I just envy that you have such good access to so many of my favorite fish and at such low prices.

[Hudson Ensz]

I sold the discus yesterday not enough room in the tank.

[Oliveber]

I knew it wasn't practical. I just envy that you have such good access to so many of my favorite fish and at such low prices.